March 6, 2023 NYC Office of the Mayor
Mayor Eric Adams: Doing great, Eric, how are you doing? Wonderful. So thank you, here with two councilmen that just really get it right all the time. Good to see you, Rit. Come here. Come and join us, Rit.
Two very important bills. They may seem as though they are apart from each other, but it's really about the quality of life for New Yorkers. And I will hold hearings and sign two bills that expand the definition of victims of domestic violence. And throughout the years we did that expansion to not only those who are married, but those who live in the family arrangement, even same sex couples. And so continue to refine and redefine as we move forward is important. And we're doing that here with including the definition of domestic violence and victims of domestic violence. We're also going to phase out the use of fuel oil number four, something that Jim has talked about often in his environmental pursuit of excellence. We're going to thank you for both these bills and the role that they're going to play. As I indicated with domestic violence, every New Yorker deserves to be safe in their relationships and live a life free of domestic and gender-based violence.
For many New Yorkers, home is no longer safe. They're in environments that's not conducive to their safety on many levels. Their lives are ripped apart due to the abuse and violence. The options narrow because escapes can be terrible consequences or the ability to earn money and finding place to live and just simply to stay safe. Domestic and gender-based violence can happen anywhere in our city and we can no longer act like it doesn't exist and economics do not play a role in some form of abuse. We look at physical and mental abuse often, but we ignore the financial abuse. Today, we'll protect New Yorkers who are experiencing economic domestic abuse. Intro 148-A expands the definition of victims of domestic violence to include economic abuse. I want to really thank Councilman Brannan for even understanding the fullness of being a victim of domestic violence. If you are trapped in your home because of your economics, you are being abused in many ways and this bill seeks to address that.
But we're also looking at an important bill as we deal with how do we clean up our environment. We are continuing to protect our environment through improving our air quality and bringing environmental justice to our communities. This bill is going to address the issues around fuel oil number four. It's currently used to heat buildings across the city. And with this bill, we are taking steps to improve our air quality by moving to less polluting fuel sources. There's going to come a day when we're all going to look at this moment and ask, What were we doing to our environment by using non-renewable fuel sources? And this is just a continuation of this pursuit. Fuel number four contains oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide and can contribute to respiratory and cardiac issues, hospitalization and asthma, emergency room visits.
And you can clearly see a heat map that the communities who are impacted the most, communities of color, Black and brown communities and low-income communities. Approximately 72 percent of the buildings that currently use fuel oil number four are in environmental justice communities that face environmental injustice. We want to continue to lean and identify these areas as we clean up our entire city, but really focus on those areas that are in greater need. Intro 470-A phases out the use of fuel oil, grade number four. This is a real commendable achievement as we continue to lead from the front in the city so that not only the country will follow, but the entire globe.
Thanks to the real partnership of Speaker Adams, Councilman Justin Brannan, our finance chair, and Council Member James Gennaro for putting these bills together. Before signing the bills and having both councilmen speak, I'll open up for any public comments at this time. That means no public comments or you cutting off somebody's snack? [Laughter.] Thank you. So I want to turn to Council Member Brannan, sponsor of intro 148-A to say a few words. Councilman.
City Council Member Justin Brannan: Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much. The New York City Human Rights Law really needs to be a brick wall to support survivors. And this was the missing brick in that wall, making sure that financial abuse was included in the definition of domestic violence. And the studies that we've read and that the advocates brought to us is that the number one reason why people stay in toxic and often violent relationships is because their tormentor is controlling their money. If someone's controlling your money, it's almost impossible to get out of that relationship. So giving survivors, empowering survivors with the tools that they need to identify economic abuse as domestic violence was simple, something that we needed to get done, and we appreciate the administration's support on this and obviously we appreciate all the advocates that worked a long time to get this done. And now that human rights law for the City of New York for survivors of domestic violence is the brick wall that it needs to be. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Is there something you need? Okay. You sure you don't need something? Okay. You know Rachel, our food person? [Laughter.] She was good.
Council Member Brannan: I'll take something.
Mayor Adams: She was giving me signals over there. And now I invite Council Member Gennaro, sponsor of intro 470-A to speak.
City Council Member James Gennaro: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Oh, here it says right here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Yeah. This is the culmination of a journey that I was part of that began in 2010. There used to be three grades of heating oil in the city, number two, number four and number six. Number two is the most common and cleanest grade of heating oil. Number six oil was the most polluting oil grade by far. And in 2010, the council, EANY administration at the time began a five-year phase out of number six. Number six is long gone, good riddance. Number four is a blend of two and six. And in 2010, when number six we put on the phase out clock, the council by local law greatly reduced the sulfur content of number four by two-thirds from 4,500 PPM sulfur down to 1,500 PPM sulfur. That made number four much cleaner, but it still has a significant amount of sulfur plus some heavy metals and other things that we shouldn't be putting into the air.
With that in mind, in 2011, number four was set to be phased out by 2030. That's the background, that's the history. And the rationale of this bill today is that we're not in a good place with regard to the ongoing phase out of number four. Despite the fact that only 0.3 percent of all buildings in the city burn number four oil, 25 percent of New York City's public schools burn number four, which is obscene, which this administration jumped on and said they were going to phase it out much earlier and we're following the Mayor's lead as we always do.
Where was I? 25 percent, yeah. Okay. To make matters even worse, as the Mayor said, most of the public schools that burn number four are in environmental justice communities. And the other 1,500 private billings that burn number four as a primary fuel, most of those are also in EJ communities. Entry 478 will remedy that. Number four oil will be out of every New York City public school by 2025. And regarding the phase out of number four oil from the 1,500 buildings that burn number four as a primary fuel and another 1,500 buildings that burn as a secondary fuel, those buildings will phase out number four from 2024 through 2027. And the bill has a penalty structure for non-compliance that says, We mean business, the administration put that in, by the way, I'm just saying, but there's also a hardship provision in the bill. So this bill is comprehensive, tough, yet fair.
Now here's what we get. This is the good part. By phasing out number four, according to the accelerated timetable, in this bill, versus waiting to number 30, we will be preventing 4.8 million pounds of sulfur oxide emissions, like the mayor said, 3.5 million pounds of nitrogen oxide, two point million pounds of the most dangerous kind of particulate matter, PM 2.5. That's 2.5 microns, your body has no defense mechanism, it goes right through into your lungs. 65,000 pounds of heavy metals and 37,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. That is a good day's work.
And that would not be possible without Mayor Adams’ extraordinary environmental leadership, Speaker Adams’ leadership and support, members of the Council's Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency, and Waterfronts, that's our new name. And the 40 Council members who co-sponsored the bill, including this guy right here. And the coalition of environmental and EJ groups had supported the bill and of course the dedicated staff who worked on this bill. And they are Samara Swanson, Ricky Chawla, Andrew Lane-Lawless, Andrew Bourne, he's the new guy over there. I see Brad Reid, and my terrific legislative director, Nabby Kaur. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Always great working with Rit and this guy always has my back.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. And again, we want to thank Rit for just the leadership over at DEP and really taking on these environmental issues head on, because our goal is really to build a planet that's going to be ready for Jeff’s new baby who's on the way, for his child. So we are excited about that.
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